Flight of the Highlanders

Bestselling author Ken McGoogan tells the story of those courageous Scots who ruthlessly evicted from their ancestral homelands were sent to Canada in coffin ships where they would battle hardship hunger and even murderous persecution.After the Scottish Highlanders were decimated at the 1746 Battle of Culloden the British government banned kilts and bagpipes and set out to destroy a clan system that for centuries had sustained a culture a language and a unique way of life. The Clearances or forcible evictions began when landlordsamong them traitorous clan chieftainsrealized they could increase their incomes dramatically by driving out tenant farmers and dedicating their estates to sheep.Flight of the Highlanders: The Making of Canadaintertwines two main narratives. The first is that of the Clearances themselves during which some 200000 Highlanders were drivensome of them burned out others beaten unconsciousfrom lands occupied by their forefathers for hundreds of years. The second narrative focuses on resettlement. The refugees frequently misled by false promises battled impossible conditions wherever they arrived from the forests of Nova Scotia to the winter barrens of northern Manitoba.Between the 1770s and the 1880s tens of thousands of dispossessed and destitute Highlanders crossed the Atlantic prototypes for the refugees we see arriving today from around the world. If today Canada is more welcoming to newcomers than most countries it is at least partly because of the lingering influence of those unbreakable refugees. Together with their better-off brethrenthe lawyers educators politicians and businessmenthose indomitable Highlanders were the making of Canada.